CES 2013 unofficially kicked off this evening with NVIDIA announcing the NVIDIA Tegra SoC, billing it as “the world’s fastest mobile processor.” It combines four Cortex-A15 CPU cores, a power-efficient “2nd Generation Battery Saver Core” and a a 72-core GPU that promises six times the graphical prowess of its predecessor, the Tegra 3. It also offers worldwide 4G LTE voice and data support through an optional NVIDIA Icera i500 processor.
“Tegra 4 provides enormous processing power and efficiency to power smartphones and tablets, gaming devices, auto systems and PCs,” said Phil Carmack, senior vice president of the Tegra business at NVIDIA. “Its new capabilities, particularly in the area of computational photography, will help improve a whole range of existing products and lead to the creation of exciting new ones.”
The Tegra 4 is more power-efficient than its predecessor. It will consume up to 45 percent less power than its predecessor and can support up to 14 hours of HD video playback on a smartphone.
NVIDIA is also touting the Tegra 4’s Computational Photography Architecture which promises to automatically deliver “high dynamic range (HDR) photos and video by fusing together the processing power of the GPU, CPU and the camera’s image-signal processor.”
Look for the Tegra 4 to first make its way into NVIDIA’s own Project Shield, a gaming platform powered by Android. It will make its way onto tablets later this year with smartphones to follow.
Read more: NVIDIA